A Reply to Hate: Forgiving My Attacker. David Tucker
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avoiding everything. The scan was quickly and formally reported as showing no primary structural damage, which I already knew, and no potential secondary damage, which was obviously good news. I was now officially off the critical list and everyone could take a deep sigh of relief. I believe my consultant colleague was soon notified, and she in turn passed the message to all my immediate work colleagues. The journey back to the resus room involved another gliding manoeuvre from the scanner bed onto the trolly, but by now I didn’t care much about the effectiveness of the trolly sheet.
Soon I was back in the resus room, where the A&E doctor reassured me again about the scan findings. He then proceeded to clean and stitch my wound. We always say “This won’t hurt much” as the local anaesthetic is being injected, and yes, I never really believed that myself entirely when I would say the same. But now I was on the receiving end, and it did hurt, even though the doctor kept on saying, with confidence, this won’t hurt much. I thought “Better keep my mouth shut and not have him become more anxious than he probably already was.” I still recall feeling every stitch. I thought I counted five, but later found them to be only four! I remember keeping very still and very quiet. He then asked me if I felt anything. Well, what could I say? By then Syrsa came back in to hold my hand and everyone was expecting that I would spend the night at the hospital. I was still lying there in my underpants when the A&E doctor said, “Dr Kurdy, you’re all clear, you can go home now.” Syrsa and I looked at each other and our immediate thought was that there was no way I was going to walk out like this! Fortunately, I was able to get a colleague to fetch me some scrubs and a pair of clogs. The cannulas were pulled out and Syrsa helped me get dressed. I sat at the edge of the trolley for a couple of minutes to make sure I didn’t feel faint and then stood up and leaned on her. I felt OK; we were ready to go home.
As we were walking out along the hospital corridor and we saw friends waiting, I started to realise the commotion that was simmering out there. There were about thirty people waiting for me and I started to get a sense of how they were interpreting the attack. Now that the concerns about my health had settled, I sensed anger, and for the first time I started to feel uncomfortable. Very early on, friends were already questioning things such as why me, why at the mosque? Throughout my time at the hospital, which probably took no more than two hours, I was virtually secluded and was totally unaware of what was unfolding elsewhere. A hospital’s resus room is a very particular type of place, and your mind does not take you much beyond where you are. At no time did I consider what might be happening at the mosque, never mind anywhere else. I was unaware of what the police had been doing and naïvely I had not expected the media to have been informed. However, it gradually transpired that it was nothing short of mayhem and I knew absolutely nothing about it.
I think if it hadn’t been for us sending reassuring messages telling people not to come to the hospital, there would have been about three hundred people there. My stabbing had all the hallmarks of an Islamophobic hate attack. My community already felt vulnerable and under threat. The police had a potential terrorist case on their hands and the media had a story to tell. It was not taking much for people to start making up their own stories. I later found out that our Islamic centre and the police had already released official statements regarding the incident and I also became aware that an urgent meeting was planned for that evening, which would include representatives from the CPS, the police and members of the local Muslim community. Serious questions needed to be addressed: was this a planned attack on the mosque; is there an extremist background to this crime; was the immediate safety of our neighbours and the wider community at risk? I presume the police would have also been concerned about the potential backlash from such an incident. It was reassuring when I found out about this meeting and the fact that such questions were being taken seriously at a high level. It was partly as a consequence of this meeting that it was decided the attack would be officially classified as a hate crime.
By the time we arrived home, the short video taken soon after the stabbing had already been viewed in Pakistan, Jordan, Iraq, Israel, Russia, Australia and the UAE! It was on a global trip. The heading did not need much elaboration: “Muslim Imam and surgeon stabbed in an unprovoked attack as he entered his local mosque”. The sentiments were already heading in one direction and feelings were running high. However, as we arrived home and opened the front door, all seemed finally calm. We asked friends to give us some privacy that evening, reassuring everyone that we were fine, but we just needed time to recover and, God willing, we would take things from there the following day.
Both of my sons were at home when we got back, Ahmad is the younger, then 13, and Oaiss was 20. They both knew early on that I was OK. When we arrived home, they were calm and relaxed and already back on their computers. The house felt calm with no excitement and very little commotion. I did not feel like watching TV and Syrsa and I just wanted to sit together and get our breath back. My daughter Assma lived in London then, though at the time of the incident she was on a short break in Barcelona. She had already gotten the news and seen the short video! She needed to hear my voice and we quickly phoned to reassure her.
Even though I still felt calm, I was in agony. My neck was hurting a great deal and I had to move very slowly, taking my time, taking things easy. I sat with Syrsa in a small room next to the kitchen. Strangely, we did not feel comfortable sitting in the living room somehow, we needed to feel cosy and close to each other. Messages started to flood in via various routes. It was a surreal experience reading “Your story is now in Pakistan, you’re on Pakistani TV: ‘Muslim Imam Stabbed in the Mosque’”, though at this point I still had no clue that there was a video. The person who recorded it was very discrete, and I don’t think anyone knew about it until they were watching it later. Some of my friends were unhappy that this took place and expressed concerns that it intruded on my privacy. In all honesty, and seeing how the story eventually unfolded, I could not begrudge what he did. That short video depicted a genuine moment and genuine expression, and it became the focal point of my experience. Without it I would only have memories, and I cannot be thankful enough that these images exist. I remember speaking to my sister that evening, who lives in the UAE, but all I can recall from the conversation was her crying her heart out. She is my only sister, and she needed a great deal of comforting and calming down, especially after she saw me grabbing onto my neck in agony; the video was already there.
As we sat alone in that little room, I quickly became disinterested in what was taking place outside. Both Syrsa and I felt we were not yet ready for it all. It was distracting from what we felt was most important to us; the fact that I walked away virtually unscathed from a stabbing in the neck. I recall we sat together on our own, facing each other, and we were fairly quiet, just looking at each other and smiling. I then asked, “How do you feel?” She said, “I feel the mercy of God has touched you today.” She said it in Arabic, and the word we use for mercy is رحمة. At no point did she mention anger or frustration as to why this happened to us. She never questioned “What the hell happened to you” or “Why did he pick on you”; none of that. She did not feel threatened or vulnerable. She just kept on saying “I feel the mercy of God has touched you today”. But then she said something that is perhaps meaningful to people of faith but may not be fathomable by others. She said, “I feel an Angel held his hand”, “his” being the attacker. That was the feeling running deep in her heart. She knew the knife could have gone anywhere in my neck, and she felt that in her heart as this man thrust the knife in me, an angel grabbed his hand. I am not sure, but I think it is fair to say that Muslims and other people of faith tend to rationalise events in their lives based on their faith and the strength of their beliefs. We believe that there is a God, we believe in angels and we believe that there is a higher purpose in life. I know that this does not sit comfortably with some people, and I also know that some may view this as downright stupid. But that is who we are. Such belief is imprinted within our psyche and makes Syrsa and I who we are. The two of us differ in many ways from each other, but when it came to faith, I told Syrsa that this was exactly how I felt. Not the slightest hint of anger came to my mind, or indeed any negativity. I just felt I was blessed, and that God was merciful to me.
But then, and as we sat there talking, Oaiss walked in. He had been at his computer and he asked us if we realised what was happening on social media. Of course, we didn’t. “They’re starting to get angry” he told us. I had not read much of what was being circulated online, and in all honesty,